


breathing fire

by northernwildflowers



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: InkHeart AU, M/M, idk if this is any good ummm but i tried ok ty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9949721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northernwildflowers/pseuds/northernwildflowers
Summary: He wonders, often, how awful he must have been in a past life to deserve something like this, to be a gifted writer too terrified to read aloud. He wonders, often, whether it was because he couldn't read aloud that sparked his obsession with words. He wonders, often, if there's some pill, some drug, some cleanse that might make it all go away.Critically acclaimed author, Derek Nurse, accidentally reads one of his most notoriously difficult characters to life. He doesn't exactly have time for this shit, but he doesn't exactly have a choice.Inkheart AU





	

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to tumblr user gingeremoji for this incredible frickin prompt, it was such a good idea; I also rlly wanna thank shit-to-remember bc they had some really cool ideas that helped me explore Dex's character and,, like, the intrinsic differences between how an author perceives their character and how their characters really are.
> 
> anyways.

Derek Nurse was twelve when he stopped reading aloud. He had tried so, so many times to stop earlier, but his teachers caught on relatively quickly to his fake coughs and croaky mutters of "sore throat". His moms had warned him against it, warned him that awful things might happen, to him or his classmates, if he kept reading aloud; in second grade, he read a story about a dog to the kids in his reading group. A few minutes later, where the bin of art supplies once sat, a small terrier puppy was panting quietly, flopping down and staring at the children with wide black eyes. Derek didn't think it was too awful. 

A few months later, he read aloud a story about a man who lost his hat. By the end of the story, Derek knew where the hat was, but when he looked up, his teacher was gone. He wore the hat home. When, a few days later, the principal came into the classroom to introduce their new teacher, Derek wondered if it was his fault, if his mothers were right, and vowed to never read out loud again. 

By the time he was in third grade, his previous teachers had warned, essentially, every teacher in the whole school about Derek's ornery behavior. He didn't think he was that bad of a kid, really, but when they were doing popcorn reading in fifth grade and the kid across the room called on him to read the paragraph in their science textbook about giant blue whales, he couldn't help but shut down. The teachers called it a behavioral problem. He called it self-defense. 

He wonders, often, how awful he must have been in a past life to deserve something like this, to be a gifted writer too terrified to read aloud. He wonders, often, whether it was _because_ he couldn't read aloud that sparked his obsession with words. He wonders, often, if there's some pill, some drug, some cleanse that might make it all go away. 

He wonders where the fuck his laptop is.

“Dude, did I leave my laptop at your place?” He asks into his phone, scrubbing a hand over his face and trying to decide whether the amount of coffee he had drunk today was proportionate with the amount of sleep he had the night before. He hears shuffling on the other line. 

“Uh, yeah, I think so?” Chowder responds, his voice a little muffled. “Unless I got a Mac recently and didn't realize I was forking over a stupid amount of money just so I can ‘maintain my aesthetic’.” Nursey scoffs. 

“I’m not having this conversation with you again. I will die before a get a shitty PC.” 

“Just because you don't know how to use a computer doesn't mean you have to take it out on PCs, Nursey.” Chowder laughs across the line and even though he’s wound up and exhausted, he can't help but laugh back. If there was one thing he learned in college, it was that he would never meet someone with a laugh as infectious as Christopher Chow’s. “Do you want me to bring it over?” Nursey opens his mouth to argue, that he’ll come pick it up because, _really_ , Chowder is too nice. He’s so tired, though, and he needs to get these chapters emailed to his editor in the next half hour or he thinks she might combust. If he doesn't sleep in the next half hour, he thinks _he_ might combust. His chapters are shit, though, for some reason he can't comprehend, can't seem to work past, and they’re already past deadline.

“That would be so fuckin’ ‘swawesome, man.” He says, instead, and sinks into his couch. “Want me to order a pizza or something? We can get wine drunk and watch It’s Always Sunny.” Chowder laughs again and Nursey can almost feel his grin. 

“‘Course. I'll be over in twenty.” 

***

He would never admit it, but Derek Nurse is a lightweight. Of course, he didn’t have to admit anything: anyone who spent time with him for more than five minutes in any situation involving alcohol would know that. It fucked up his aesthetic, honestly, and ruined any possibility at becoming the kind of classic author whose diet consisted of scotch and cheap cigarettes. Scotch affected him almost as intensely as tequila did, and he’d always been a rowdy drunk, not some kind of nonsensical philosopher. Nursey always had trouble denying himself of physical pleasures, never knowing when to stop, exactly; so, he was a lightweight and he drank until he blacked out or until someone tried to take his cup away. 

Chowder wasn't much different. Nursey and Chowder, alone, with two bottles of some of the dryest pinot noir Nursey had had in ages was...a dangerous combination. 

“This feels classy as fuck.” Nursey says and cheese drips off his pizza and lands on his face. Chowder giggles loudly before shoving the entirety of his slice into his mouth. Three-fourths of the first bottle of wine is gone and Nursey can't seem to remember what was making him so upset before. 

“You sent those...those, uh,” Chowder waves his left hand around, trying to will the words out, and takes a swig out of his class. “Those chapters! To your editor, right? You were supposed to do that.” He giggles again. 

“Yeah,” Nursey says, trying, in an impressive display of oral acrobatics, to lick the cheese off his cheek. “As soon as you got here.” He laughs and Chowder tops off Nursey’s wine glass; he’s so glad he brought out the stemless plastic ones. The couch shifts, then, and Chowder sits up, abrupt and ramrod straight. His eyes wide and, in his excitement, a bit of wine splashed onto his nose. 

“Omigod, you know what you should do?” Nursey’s answer is delayed as he rips his eyes away from the tv.

“Huh?” He asks and Chowder is grinning. 

“Read your chapters to me.” Nursey blinks, sips his wine. “Please? Your last book was so good! And I've been wanting to read the new chapters, but you refuse to send them to me.” He's pouting now and Nursey is trying to remember why acquiescing to his request is a bad idea. 

“Man, the chapters are so bad…I’m...I’m, like, having trouble writing right now, everything’s convoluted as fuck and my characters are giving me a metric fuck ton of grief.” 

“Hm…” Chowder seems to consider it. “Maybe...maybe if you read it out loud, we can work through the problem? Omigod! I can help you, maybe?” He sounds so eager. Nursey wants to say no. He can't remember _why_ and he dips his pizza crust in his wine before stuffing it into his mouth. 

“Sure.” 

***

Nursey has had his fair share of hangovers. He went to a liberal arts college, for fucks sake. He was a _student athlete_. He was a _writer_ , he _is_ a writer. He’s been to a lot of fucking parties. 

Still, nothing prepares him for the splitting headache he wakes up with: his head feels like it’s been stuffed to bursting with cotton balls, hearing and vision more than a little fuzzy, and his stomach doesn't seem to be in the right part of his body. When he checks his phone, it’s almost 7, which, really, was unfortunate; he didn't have anywhere to be today, he could have _slept in_ , but he only has time to lament the missed opportunity for a moment before he hears a loud crash from his patio. 

It's not the first time someone has broken into his house, stranger or otherwise, and he immediately heads to the closet in his foyer, reaching past the curtain of jackets to grab his hockey stick; he played a lot more in college, but, with the disproportionate number of friends playing in or having some kind of ties to the NHL, he still finds himself on the ice relatively frequently. He swings the stick over his shoulder before heading to the patio; the sliding glass doors are wide open and the handle looks like it had been ripped off, crumpled on the ground next to the door’s track. Maybe, he should have woken Chowder up, too. His hands tighten around the stick. 

There’s a man on the patio, and the first thing Nursey notices is how red his hair is. He’s tall, too, covered in freckles and vaguely familiar, and is _trespassing_ on his patio, pressed into the corner against the wall of potted flowers Nursey kept. He looks feral, his strange amber eyes darting around nervously, and all Nursey can think is _red red red_. 

“Um.” Is all that comes out of his mouth, hands going slack around the hockey stick. The man looks less dangerous than he does absolutely terrified and Nursey is suddenly unsure as to whether or not he’s being robbed, if he’s even really in danger. He doesn't think he is. “Who...who are you?” The man blinks, eyebrows furrowed so tight Nursey thinks his face might collapse in on itself, and Nursey lowers his stick a bit. “Why are you on my patio?” He enunciates, slowly. The man opens his mouth, closes it, and presses further back against the wall. 

“I need to get back…” his eyes screw shut as he shakes his head. “Whiskey...Whiskey needs me,” he rubs his temples. Nursey finds himself following the motion there, still unsure as to why the guy looks so fuckin’ _familiar_. His eyes shoot open, and all Nursey can think is _gold gold gold_. “The ship. Holy fuck, the ship is about to blow, I need to get back! Where are my tools, fuck.” He looks around, presses himself back again. “Where _am_ I? Who _the fuck_ are you?” Nursey takes a step back, opens his mouth minutely. 

“I…uh. My name’s Derek Nurse. Who are you?” He asks, trying to stand his ground and sound firm, rather than astonished. The man straightens up a little and curls his left hand into a fist, resting it above his navel. It looks like a salute, almost. 

“William J. Poindexter of Southern Mercury, Hyperion sector. Head mechanic of the Hydro-Affluent U-Ship.” He deflates a bit then, before looking Nursey directly in the eye, speaking quietly and urgently. “I don't know who are, I don't know where I am, but I need to get back to my ship. The pipes just burst and...if I don't fix it, the whole ship will flood and our entire water supply will be out and...I don't know when we’ll get to another planet with potable water.” Nursey staggers back, almost tripping over the hockey stick. His skin feels warm, so so warm, and he thinks about pinching himself to see if he’s dreaming because this...this is impossible. 

“How…who the fuck are you? How do you _know_ that?” He feels his legs buckle, barely, and braces his hands on his knees. “I barely introduced Dex in the last book...not even my editor knows where he’s from…” When he looks back up, the man’s eyes are wide: they’re all red hot fire, flickering dangerously, but fearfully, as if Nursey was water about to snuff him out. Nursey has a sinking feeling, then, that he broke the promise he made to himself when he was so young. He doesn't want to believe it, doesn't want to believe that this man is a character that he created. He remembers, then, the detriments of pulling someone out of writing and-- “Chowder.” He breathes. “Holy fuck, Chowder!” He’s back in the living room before he can catch his breath, hoping with every fiber of his being that Chowder was still in his apartment and not in Nursey’s fuckin’ _book_. 

“Huh?” and Nursey lets out his breath, lungs too tight. Chowder blinks sleepily and scrubs a hand across his face. “What are you screaming about?” He mumbles, winces. “Dude, I have a killer headache right now, so if you could shut up, that would be fuckin’ ‘swawesome.” 

“Um.” Nursey flops down onto the couch, eyeing the sliding glass door. He can see the man’s-- _Dex’s_ \--shadow moving on the patio floor. “Um, so. I read those chapters to you last night?” 

“Yes,” Chowder responds, eyes shut tight, and grabs at one of the throw pillows so he can shove it over his face. Nursey kind of wants to do the same. 

“And, uh, right. What did you think about Dex?” 

“He was fine,” Chowder says, exasperated. “Considering he was the token white side character.” Nursey can't help but laugh, despite the situation, but it sends a spark of pain up to his temples and he remembers that he, too, is _severely hungover_. 

“I don't want to fuckin’ deal with this right now.” He groans, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees white. 

“We have to pay for the mistakes me made last night” Chowder groans. Nursey knows he's talking about the hangover, but his words hit a little too hard when he heard loud thump somewhere to his left. When he opens his eyes, Dex is standing there, staring at Nursey and Chowder with that same flickering, fearful, burning look. Nursey rips the pillow off of Chowder’s face without breaking sight with Dex. “Oh! Holy fuck!” He presses himself to the couch. “Who the fuck are you!” Dex’s gaze flicks to Chowder, then Nursey, then back to Chowder. Nursey shuts his eyes and tries to regulate his breathing. 

“Remember when I told you I can't read out loud?”

“Uh, yeah? Look, I don't see what this has--” 

“Let me explain,” Nursey pleas. “I...I don't know _why_ , it’s, like, a family thing, I don't _know_ , but if I read out loud--from any book--something will come out of it. People, animals, plants, it doesn't matter, just…anything alive will come out.” Chowder’s mouth has fallen open into a tiny ‘o’. “If something comes out, something goes in, though. And...you’re fine...so…?” Nursey’s eyes shoot open again. “ _Hamlet_.” He leans towards the coffee table, digging under the empty pizza box to find a bag of cat treats. He shakes it a few times, calling his cat’s name, before getting up and walking the perimeter of the house to do the same. 

“Hamlet?” Comes a voice behind him. He turns, and Chowder is reaching a hand out to grip his elbow. Dex is standing a little ways off, looking so out of place. 

“My cat! My fuckin’ cat is gone and now we have to deal with a bitchy mechanic from the future! Holy fuck, oh my god.” Nursey wonders if he’s having a panic attack, chest tight and heart racing; he slides down, barely registering as his ass hits the ground. 

“ _Bitchy_ mechanic? You’re the one freaking the fuck out! I don't even know where I am! I don't even know who you are and you’re calling me _bitchy_?” Dex explodes from the living room. Nursey looks up, vision tunneling. “And what the fuck are you talking about books? I'm most certainly not from a fuckin’ _book_! I need to get home, I need to get back to the ship! Do you understand how dire this is?” Nursey can't look away as Dex lowers himself, jerkily, onto the couch. “We need to find water...do you understand how important that is? There’s no water left in our solar system...if our ship goes down...the H.A.U.S. is our last hope…” His eyes slide shut. Nursey wants to do something, anything, but his limbs feel like liquid and he can barely comprehend his situation. It’s one thing pulling a dog out of some unimportant children’s book, it’s another pulling out _your own character_ \--a notoriously mercurial, difficult character--from _your own book._ “If the ship goes down...we used the last of our materials for this ship...everyone’s going to die. My family, my friends, everyone I've ever cared about.” There's a soft gasp behind him and Nursey looks up at Chowder’s glossy eyes. 

“Chow.” Nursey says, reaching for his attention. “You know how the series ends. It's going to be fine.” 

“Oh.” He says, blinking, looking between Nursey and Dex. “Is he allowed to know that?” He whispers. Nursey shrugs. 

“Probably not.” He sighs. He needs to call his moms; he’s never pulled someone out like this, he’s not exactly sure what kind of consequences will come out of Dex knowing anything about...well, the future Nursey has planned out for him. Nursey was planning on killing him off by the end of the next book, but he’s not sure if Dex should know that. 

“Okay, okay. Look, just stay here...I'll try to talk to him.” Chowder says, reaching down to pat Nursey’s shoulder before realizing Nursey wasn't really in a place to handle that at the moment. He takes a deep breath, eyelids fluttering. 

“Right. Right. Thank you.” Nursey can hear snippets of their conversation--hushed on Chowder’s end, volatile and desperate on Dex’s. Nursey doesn't know if anything would get through to Dex; he doesn't know if he would believe someone if they told him that the world he had been born in raised in was actually fiction and the one he just _poofed_ into was real, that the man who pulled him into this new world had been the one to create that fictional world. 

“No!” Dex yells and Nursey flinches. Chowder has a hand on each of Dex’s shoulders, trying to keep him from flailing, as he attempts to calm Dex down. A few minutes pass: Dex struggles less, seems to listen to Chowder, and Nursey’s heart rate slows to normal. He wiggles his toes, the feeling coming back to his limbs, before slowly pulling himself back up. Dex’s eyes shoot to Nursey as he takes a tentative step towards them. 

“Hey,” he says softly and Dex’s jaw tightens. “Listen to me, okay? I did this to you,” and Nursey’s not sure if he means the situation--pulling him into the real world--or everything: his life, his struggles, the absolutely devastating narrative Nursey has written Dex into. “And for that, I’m...I’m so sorry, so so sorry. But I don't know, exactly, how to get you back in. You can stay here until we figure it out and I'll, I’ll take care of you, alright? I won't let anything bad happen to you, while you're here.” He tacks that last bit on because, really, he can't promise anything once Dex is back in the book. Dex still looks on edge; Nursey can't blame him. “Can I get you something? Food? Water?” He nods, slowly, bottom lip falling slightly. “Okay. Okay, great.” 

“The kitchen is over here.” Chowder says, helping Dex stand, and they follow Nursey to the kitchen. Nursey can feel Dex’s gaze on the back of his neck. 

“You like grilled cheese?” He asks, opening the fridge and pulling out a loaf of bread and the Brita filter. Dex’s eyes are wide as he pours the water into the glass and hands it to him. 

“This is for me?” He asks and Nursey wants to smack himself. In the world he created, water was scarce and, even on the ship his story took place on, water was rationed to an almost unsustainable extent. Nursey pushes the cup towards him again and Dex blinks rapidly before wrapping his fingers, long and thin and agile, around it. He looks into the cup, inspects it, sniffs it, before flicking his eyes back up to Nursey and sipping at it slowly. His eyes roll close. Something in Nursey’s chest snaps, heart tightening as he watches Dex’s throat work. Chowder catches his eyes, brow raised, and Nursey can't do anything but breathe deep and shrug. Dex lowers the cup and it’s empty. Nursey clears his throat. 

“Um. So. Grilled cheese?” 

***  
Dex is lactose intolerant. 

The fact that this is news to him, that there are things about his characters that he doesn't know, has never thought of, makes his skin prickle uncomfortably. It makes him wonder if he’s a bad writer. How much is there about his characters that he doesn't know? How much is there about _Dex_ that he doesn't know, doesn't understand? Nursey really, really wants to take a nap. 

“What about, like, pasta?” Nursey has written about his characters having eaten pasta before, he knows _that_ at least. “Do you like red sauce? It’s tomatoes and shit.” He says and Dex wrinkles his nose. 

“I've never had it.” Nursey sighs. 

“Would you be willing to try it?” He asks patiently. Dex shrugs and Nursey wishes, more than anything, that he pulled out a character a little less surly. “It’s good, I swear.” He says, and he’s already pouring the marinara into a saucepan. Dex looks dubious and Chowder looks amused, from where he's sitting at the kitchen table. Nursey can't get over how weird the whole situation is: Dex is sitting at the island ripping a napkin into long strip, staring out the window blankly and Nursey feels like he should know this guy, feel some sort of intrinsic connection or understanding, but the more he looks at Dex, the more of a stranger he becomes. Nursey stirs the pasta and stares. 

“Can you stop that?” Dex snaps, balling up his collection of napkin strips. Nursey jerks; he hadn't expected Dex to call him out, really. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles and Dex is huffing, pulling himself bodily off the stool. 

“Do you have a bathroom?” Chowder directs him down the hall before turning to Nursey, face an absolute mess of emotions. 

“I can't figure out how to feel about this.” He says and Nursey snorts because, really. 

“How do you think I feel?” The water is boiling hard, now, and he pours the pasta in before falling against the counter and letting out a strangled groan. “I feel like I should know him, you know? I fuckin’ wrote him, and maybe it’s the stress of the fuckin’ situation, but he’s nothing like how I imagined.” He sighs, and his whole body heaves with it. “I need him to get back in the fucking book. I'm stressed and busy and already behind deadline and I can't exactly churn out the next chapters if one of the major characters isn't _in it_.” He pauses. “And...he’s so different, Chow. I've barely talked to him, really, but. His mannerisms, his reactions...I feel like a bad author, or something, I didn't imagine him like this at all.” There's a cough, then, and when Nursey looks up, Dex is standing there, expression a little less pinched: the lines between his eyebrows have smoothed away. 

“Sorry,” he says, like it's the only truth in the world. William J. Poindexter is sorry for the situation Nursey put him in and, maybe, his eyes look a little too hard for it to be sincere, but when Nursey thinks about his character, Dex, he thinks about a person who would never apologize, whose emotions were maybe a little stunted, who didn't care about how other people really felt. Nursey blinks. 

“It’s not...it’s my fault. All of this is my fault. You should hate me.” Something complicated flashes over his face, as if he’s realizing the implications of his life being a written narrative. 

“I do.” He says simply, and sits back down at the island.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading this far! I'm definitely planning on exploring/revealing more about the universe Dex comes from, so I'm excited about that!! Please let me know if anything seems weird, out of character, if I didn't exactly explain something and it doesn't make sense, or if there are any specific things you'd like to see explored in this fic!! I don't totally remember everything about Inkheart, so I kind of just read the wikipedia for some refreshers and then winged it.
> 
> pls comment + kudos + find me on tumblr @ nurseynurse


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